On a fall day at UC Berkeley, I left campus utterly inspired, and it wasn’t from class. It was from talks by Michele Roberts, a respected litigator and the first woman to lead the National Basketball Players Association (NBPA). She spoke candidly at a morning coffee with law students about her tough childhood, her youthful aspirations, and a legal career that proved her mettle.
Accepting a citation award later that day, she shared a story about one of her early criminal cases: a young prostitute she helped get off the street and go back to school. It’s a tale that, in the telling, moved her to tears, reminding her of her own hardscrabble road to the top.